


let the world start spinning

by damerons (noblydonedonnanoble)



Category: The Way Way Back (2013)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon, and how Caitlin could possibly put up with it, the fic for when you walk away from this movie asking whether Owen will actually grow long-term
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:47:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26853199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/damerons
Summary: Owen and Caitlin navigate their relationship in the fall-out of Duncan's time at Water Wizz.
Relationships: Caitlin (The Way Way Back)/Owen (The Way Way Back)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	let the world start spinning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [potatofuzz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/potatofuzz/gifts).



_Fall_

“Hey, I was just thinking about you.”

Caitlin’s chuckle hit Owen’s ears soft and warm through the phone. “No way, you’re not enough of a sap for that.”

“Am too. I’m on my lunch break, so I was just mulling over my list of things to pick up for our date night.”

“Oh, Owen…” Her voice faltered, and he had a moment of sheer panic in which he was convinced that she’d called to say that she’d made a huge mistake in staying, in dating him; convinced that she was about to reveal she was leaving him forever. “That’s actually exactly why I was calling. Isaac sprained his ankle and can’t serve tonight, and I was wondering how you’d feel about me taking his shift.”

In his surprise, Owen’s first reaction was not about their date, but rather to ask, “Shit, is he okay?”

“What, you’re not going to ask how he did it? It was apparently pretty fucking funny… But yeah, he’ll be fine after a bit of physical therapy.”

Owen’s gaze fell to his half-eaten sandwich, which he’d dropped onto his grocery list in his haste to pick up Caitlin’s call. She was right—he hadn’t asked how Isaac got the sprain, or offered an absurd hypothetical explanation for the injury.

Mostly, the thought of it just made his own ankle smart, and sparked in him an empathetic concern for Caitlin’s boss, Will, who was no doubt stressed as hell trying to find a replacement on such short notice.

“I told the Hendersons that I wouldn’t be done with their living room until tomorrow…” he said slowly. “But a few extra hours of sniffing paint tonight might not be the worst thing in the world.”

“Are you positive?” Caitlin sounded genuinely anxious. “Thursdays have been our standing date night for almost three months now, so you just say the word and—”

Owen didn’t even let her finish. “You’re working dinner tomorrow, right? So we can make it up Saturday. Get back to Thursdays next week.”

“This means the world, babe. Really. Will told me to tell you he owes you.”

“Perfect. Tell him I’ll come to collect next time I need help burying a body.”

Caitlin glossed over this, but Owen heard a smile in her voice as she asked, “Could you pick up some more coffee on the way home?”

Owen’s lips quirked up. “It’s already on the list.”

After hanging up, Owen crossed a few things off the list that he’d buy fresh on Saturday, instead.

He also drew a little smiley face next to the _coffee_ scrawl.

It was funny. Until Caitlin said something, he hadn’t even really realized that they’d fallen into such a routine.

He didn’t hate it.

_Winter_

It was around 8:30 when Caitlin slid onto an empty stool at the end of the bar—the one under the flickering light, where no one liked to sit if they were there to meet people _or_ to get drunk.

She was doing neither. Granted, she’d order one drink (and Owen had become quite good at guessing what she was in the mood for), and she’d nurse it for an hour or two, chatting with him when he wasn’t serving customers. When she finished her drink, she would give Owen a kiss and head out.

This, too, was a routine that developed quickly and largely without Owen’s notice. It was just that they’d come to really enjoy debriefing about their days each evening, but on nights when he had to close down the bar, Caitlin didn’t like waiting up to see him, and he was apt to crash as soon as he got home anyway. So he kept asking her to stop by after work, until eventually he didn’t have to ask anymore.

When he spotted her, Owen was in the middle of prepping drinks for a couple who’d ordered a lot but were tipping like shit. He met her gaze and mouthed, _martini?_

She smiled and nodded.

He served the bad tippers (light on the alcohol, because fuck ‘em), and sauntered over to Caitlin with gin and vermouth in one hand, mixing glass and bitters in the other. Taking on a bad southern drawl, he said, “Well howdy, missy. What’s a beautiful girl like you doin’ in a place like this?”

“Looking for trouble.” Caitlin settled her elbows on the bar and leaned forward, and Owen smirked before giving her a soft kiss. “You guys seem a bit slow tonight.”

“A bit,” Owen conceded, glancing around at the patrons scattered through the bar. Then, setting the mixing glass in front of Caitlin, he began to prep her drink. “I heard it might be because Paul McCartney’s doing his millionth farewell tour in Boston tonight. Did you hear anything about that?”

Caitlin nodded and hummed her agreement. “We cut down to two servers almost an hour earlier than normal, and one of our regulars mentioned that he probably would have been at the concert instead except that he missed out on tickets. Honestly, though, I was kind of relieved.”

“Yeah, I know you didn’t really want to be there tonight.” Owen tilted his head to look at her thoughtfully. “You feeling any better?”

“How do you define _better_ , really?”

Owen furrowed his brow and feigned deep thought before pulling out his cell phone. “According to Google, ‘better’ is defined as… Jesus Christ, who decided that one word could be four different parts of speech? And like ten different definitions, I can’t commit to this bit.” Owen tucked his phone away again and then looked back up at her. “Sorry, I was thinking I’d maybe have to read three definitions max.”

“That’s okay, babe.” Caitlin smirked and pointed toward her drink, which Owen was still stirring. “I think my martini’s probably ready, by the way.”

“What, this?” Owen looked between the glass and Caitlin. “No, no, y’see, this is a special kind of martini that has an extra long stirring time because…” He trailed off, hesitating for a moment before saying, “Because I was happy to see you and I got distracted.”

Caitlin took this in. She held up her empty martini glass for him to pour, and murmured, “Thank you,” when he did. “I _am_ feeling a bit better,” she offered after taking a sip. “My Advil finally kicked in half an hour after I got to work and my back hasn’t hurt since, but my calves are still aching a bit.”

“Shit, still?” Owen leaned on the bar. “Maybe I should shut the place down early, just in case you, y’know, can’t quite find the strength to climb the stairs, or get into bed.”

“Right, Sam would be thrilled.” Caitlin was responding as though this was one of his bits, but there was an earnestness in her expression – and Owen had become quite skilled at detecting this earnestness – which betrayed that she wanted him to be serious.

Before Owen could answer, though, another customer hailed him, and he had to rush away.

This customer’s order turned into four others in quick succession, so that it was a few minutes before Owen was back at Caitlin’s little quiet corner.

“As much as I love Sam,” he told her, “He’s a little old-fashioned. Terrified of things he doesn’t understand. _Definitely_ tries not to think about his wife’s period, let alone anyone else’s. If I said you were in rough shape and blamed your _time of the month_ … he might panic and let me off.”

Caitlin shook her head, unable to resist the urge to laugh. “That’s not how it works.”

Owen fell silent for a long beat – much longer than he usually managed to stay silent – and smoothed a hand through his hair. “You’ve got me feeling a little caught here. I’m trying to be better about not just skirting around my responsibilities on a whim, but I was joking about it until you kinda made it seem like you want me to come home.”

“You’re right, you’re right.” Caitlin took in a slow breath. “I think I’m more trying to talk myself out of it than you, honestly.” She reached out and grazed her fingers over his bare forearm. “I want you to stay here, like the good working man you are. But I also wouldn’t mind if, y’know, you happened to notice that the place had cleared out around 10 or so and so you decided to just… lock up for the night. Because rules have some exceptions, right?”

Owen smiled softly. “Right.”

_Spring_

With warmer weather came Owen’s annual vacation. For as long as Caitlin had known him, this was the two weeks when Owen rented a cabin or went on a road trip or hung out on a beach to unwind in complete solitude before the frenzy of summer.

One morning, she was in the middle of showering when he stepped in and asked her to join him on the trip.

“This couldn’t wait ‘til I was getting dressed?”

“Nope.”

Caitlin rolled her eyes and laughed at him, but she agreed, and they spent the next several weeks planning the getaway.

Her cousin had a cabin in Michigan, so the two of them drove there together, stopping along the way at a few tourist traps and roadside stands to take tacky pictures and pick up some of the best cherries they’d ever eaten.

They were on some backroad, Caitlin at the wheel as she had agreed to be for the final leg of their journey. Their conversation had faltered about ten minutes before when a song came on the radio that they both loved, and they were still sitting quite comfortably.

Owen was the one to break the silence. Glancing over toward Caitlin, casting his eyes over her profile, he said, “Could I get your thoughts on something that I’ve been thinking about for the park?”

“Hmm?”

“Last summer, when I hired Duncan, it was mostly because it seemed like he needed a place, but I’ve been thinking these past few weeks about how nice it was to have another floater around the park. Seems like it might not be the worst thing in the world to hire a local kid to do it, just work part-time when we need them. Does that sound like a good idea?”

Caitlin hummed. “Yeah, I think it does. Especially if we can find a kid who can help to straighten you out anywhere near as much as Duncan did.”

“Hey, I thought I was all straightened.”

“I think we both know you’ll never be all straightened,” she said, her tone affectionate. “We can draft up a job listing when we get home, and that should still give us plenty of time to hire someone before the park opens. It might be a bit weird scheduling interviews around my schedule at the restaurant…”

Owen frowned. “You don’t have to do that. I figured I’d interview them.”

“You? Managing the hiring process?”

“I mean…” Owen shrugged, feeling suddenly embarrassed. His courtesy and his growing work ethic didn’t really surprise Caitlin anymore, so her reaction felt strange and more than a little undeserved.

“Not… Oh no, Owen, not because of that. Since we’d talked about me doing most of the employee oversight, I just figured…”

Oh, thank God.

Even so, she’d flustered him, and he scrambled to explain himself anyway. “Do you want to do the interviews? I assumed you’d be so busy, and I didn’t want you to feel like I was just pushing work onto you to get out of making hard decisions.”

Caitlin looked over at Owen just long enough to give him a gentle, reassuring smile. “I feel like it might be good for us to do it together. I can find the time in my schedule.”

A few more moments passed before Caitlin said, softly, “No one’s gonna come close to Pop ‘n Lock, though.”

“No,” Owen agreed.

_Summer_

On the fourth of July, Owen and Caitlin sat on the porch of Owen’s old apartment, watching the sun set on Water Wizz as they knocked back a few beers.

“Can I tell you something stupid?”

“I feel like you tell me a lot of stupid things,” Caitlin retorted.

“This is a particular level of stupid.”

She smiled and gestured him on. “Go ahead.”

“When Roddy and I did a few runs down the slides after closing, I was thinking about how fucking lucky I am to run a place like this. But the _stupid_ thing is… I feel like that’s more true right now than it was when I fucked around every day.”

Caitlin tilted her head, her eyes on the sunset, not on Owen. “That’s not stupid.” She seemed content to leave it at that, and honestly, he wasn’t sure whether he needed to hear anything else in that moment, either.

Owen’s gaze fell to the beer bottle in Caitlin’s hand, noticing that she’d emptied it with her most recent swig. He replaced it with a fresh one from the cooler between them, and as she smiled at the sky, his heart burst with joy.


End file.
